The August 1914 Mobilization

AUG 04 1914 · 12:00

An officer reads the German mobilisation order to a crowd on the Unter den Linden, Berlin, 1 August 1914. Place: Vienna, Belgrade, St Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels Figures: Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, German Chief of Staff · Nicholas II of Russia, ordering and rescinding · Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Chancellor · Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary · the railway timetables, sovereign in fact The Timetables Take Over Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia on 28 July. Russia orders partial mobilization on 29 July, then full mobilization on 30 July when the General Staff convinces the Tsar that partial mobilization will fatally disrupt the timetable for full mobilization later. Germany issues an ultimatum demanding Russian demobilization within twelve hours; when it expires, Berlin declares war on Russia on 1 August. France mobilizes the same evening. The Schlieffen Plan, designed in the 1890s and refined through 1905, allows for no variant in which Germany mobilizes against Russia without also invading France through Belgium. Moltke informs the Kaiser, who has briefly hoped to fight east only, that the entire deployment schedule cannot be rewritten in an afternoon. Germany invades Luxembourg on 2 August and Belgium on 4 August. Britain, guarantor of Belgian neutrality since 1839, declares war on Germany the same night. A War No One Wanted, On Schedule Within a week of the Serbian ultimatum's expiry, all six European Great Powers are at war. Each general staff has built its credibility on the speed and rigidity of its mobilization plan; each plan has been designed to remove the political class's ability to hesitate. The system functions exactly as designed and produces a continental war that almost no leader actually wants. It is the first major Westphalian system failure to prevent a war. The Concert of Europe (see [[congress-of-vienna-1815]]) had assumed that Great Powers in periodic conference could damp local crises before they became general. By August 1914 the conference mechanism is gone; the alliances are automatic; the timetables are sovereign. Le système, as a French diplomat observes that week, marche tout seul. The system walks by itself. Video: Indy Neidell's opening episode of the centennial real-time series, tracking the cascade of ultimatums and general mobilisations through late July and early August 1914.